Hearing on shifting Khaleda’s trial court at regular bench

Staff Correspondent daily-bangladesh.com

Published: 14:09 11 June 2019

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A vacation bench of the High Court on Tuesday sent to the regular bench a writ petition filed by BNP Chairperson Khaleda Zia challenging the government’s move to hold the trial in 17 cases against her inside the Keraniganj Central Jail.

The bench of Justice Farah Mahbub and Justice Md Khairul Alam passed the order after Khaleda Zia’s lawyer AJ Mohammad Ali requested the court to send the petition to the regular bench saying that they will place more arguments on the matter.

The regular HC benches will reopen on June 16 after the vacation ends.

Senior lawyer AJ Mohammad Ali and Barrister Moudud Ahmed argued for the BNP chief while Additional Attorney General Murad Reza represented the state and Khurshid Alam Khan stood for the Anti-Corruption Commission.

After the court order, Moudud said they were supposed to submit gazettes on shifting the court to the Keraniganj jail before the court but they could not as they are yet to get those. “There’s should be a detailed hearing. But this bench has no time as the vacation ends today (Tuesday).”

On May 28, Barrister Kayser Kamal filed the writ petition on behalf of Khaleda Zia.

The Law Ministry on May 13 issued separate gazette notifications about setting up a makeshift court inside Keraniganj jail and holding trial in 17 cases against Khaleda there.

The newly-constructed building-2 of the central jail was declared the makeshift court as per the sub-section 2 of section 9 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.

Khaleda has been in jail since February last year after she was convicted of corruption. Her party claims that the cases against her are politically motivated and accuses the government of plotting to keep her out of national politics - a charge the government denies.